Quick Interview

Operational interview is a kind of informational, only in an even more condensed version. For example, in the plot of the fire includes a statement of the head of the fire service about the statistics and the causes of urban fires. The boss may speak in front of the camera for a long time, however, a fragment of 20-40 seconds will be included in the news release from the interview, and the quote will be clearly entered into the context of the plot. Such operational statements of experts, specialists in any field on very specific occasions are an obligatory component of news materials of the press, informational plots of radio or television.

There is another type of interview that aims to collect different opinions on a particular, usually narrow issue. A popular form of such targeted interviews is a blitz survey, or a street survey. In the English style it is called street talk , often also use the Latin version - vox pop . A characteristic feature of such interviews is the posing of identical, fixed questions to as many respondents as possible, to representatives of the same or, on the contrary, different social groups.

For a television report on the anti-smoking action, you can, for example, conduct a survey of students and schoolchildren, asking everyone the question: “Do you smoke? If so, are you going to quit smoking? ” But for the story about the mood in the city after the terrorist act that took the lives of several people, it is better to interview representatives of different age groups.

Journalists are often mistakenly called this type of interview sociological survey, because it contains an element of the method of concrete sociological research - a fixed, clear question for a large number of respondents. However, it lacks the main requirement for sociological research - representativeness, i.e. representation of various social groups, and, therefore, according to the results of such surveys, it is impossible to draw serious conclusions that pretend to scientific accuracy.

Interview-investigation is carried out with the purpose of in-depth study of any event or problem. As a rule, it is organized in detail and is not bound by tight time constraints, although, of course, there are schedules here too. The subject matter may be complex and controversial. Therefore, they speak of combinatorial methods. It is very important to pay a lot of attention to setting goals and preliminary work with materials, to study in full measure all written sources and oral evidence, to think out a well-thought out strategy. The most important link is the questions here. However, it is necessary to consider other elements of communication, such as the first contact, non-verbal forms of communication, the ability to listen. The investigation interview may involve several characters with different temperaments and social roles. And to each of them an individual approach should be found.

Interview-portrait, or personal interview (even in the manner of artists say: “profile”), on the contrary, focuses on one character, but it is advisable to hold more than one meeting with people interested, relatives or, on the contrary, with outside observers. The hero of such an interview can be a person who has shown himself in any sphere of public life and attracts the interest of the general public. Less often there are portrait interviews with the so-called “ordinary people”, who must somehow show themselves or be very typical. The details of life, the interior, the clothes, the peculiarities of the hero's speech — in a word, that which forms the individuality and must be surely passed on to the reader bear a heavy load.

Consider another type of interview, when a journalist is not just an intermediary in the transfer of information, but is actually on an equal footing with his interlocutor in the process of co-creation. Such a creative interview is often called a conversation, a dialogue. The result of a creative partnership is an information product in a close to an artistic genre, which, depending on the transmission channel, can be embodied in an artistic essay, essay, documentary and journalistic film, dialogue on the air, etc. The first condition of such an interview is a great professional experience, the creative reputation of a journalist. The second is the right choice of the interlocutor, with the help of which, by virtue of his abilities, actions or social status, a journalist will be able to reach a deep level of generalizations, see the drama in the problem, and the universal beginning in his personal destiny.